God's Mirror
God’s eternal truth is not provided simply for academic purposes. It is given as a roadmap, describing in great detail how God’s people can faithfully follow the highway leading to Christlikeness. In other words, God’s word is not recorded in the pages of Scripture to simply inform us and to fill our heads with trivial knowledge fit for a contestant on Jeopardy! God’s inspired word is given to redeem and change sinners from the inside out. Apart from knowing the gospel, as revealed in Scripture, humanity would remain in sin and thus be destined for hell. Holiness requires redemption through faith in Christ alone followed by persistent obedience to the commandments of Scripture. Paul makes this point clear in 1 Peter 1:22 where he writes, “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth.” God does not save sinners to leave them as they are; they are saved with the purpose of becoming like their heavenly Father.
In the opening chapter of James’s short epistle, he masterfully weaves an important contrast for his readers to carefully consider when he writes:
For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing (vv. 23-25).
According to these verses, there is a profound difference between those who hear the word of God but never change, and those who hear Scripture and obediently follow what it teaches. Simply put, there are those who obediently love and serve God, and there are those who don’t. Unlike a casual or disingenuous follower of Jesus, a faithful believer looks diligently into the perfect law of liberty (later called royal law in 2:8) and takes decisive action. This means that we read and understand the teachings of Christ so we can apply what we learn to our daily lives. Christians are expected to not only consume God’s word through consistent reading and listening, they are also commanded to digest it, apply it, and live it.
I’m acutely confident that before you leave the house each day you check your appearance in a mirror. What we see in our physical reflection points out any changes that need to be made to our face, clothes, or hair. My hair is rather unruly. It’s coarse, frizzy, and typically uncooperative. I don’t necessarily spend a lot of time on my hair, but I would not think of leaving the house before checking it in a mirror—or putting on a hat, which I prefer. James argues that none of us beholds our reflection in a mirror and fails to take corrective action. But for some strange reason we consistently do this spiritually when we look into the mirror of God’s word and ignore the sin we see or cover it up–like I often do with my unruly hair. Ignoring sin or covering it is certainly easier than addressing it. But both are dangerous propositions that bring destructive consequences.
Domesticating our sins is certainly less troublesome than biblically repenting of our transgressions and mortifying them. Pretending our sins don’t exist is obviously more comfortable and less time-consuming than repentance and change. These approaches may be less demanding in the short-term, but our tendency to overlook our spiritual needs stunts our spiritual growth and leaves us spiritually immature, guaranteeing future problems that will cause even more havoc in our lives. This is why James so urgently calls Christians to take immediate action against the sin God’s word points out. Dealing with sin the instant it comes to our attention saves us a lot of heartache down the road.
Sin always spins a powerful web of confusion, and creates a lot of heartache and damage. Rather than forsaking our sin and repenting of it, we coddle it, excuse it, and allow it to fester and grow. Our sinful hearts are seasoned with the spice of deceit, which often blinds us to the truth we so desperately need to hear. This is why godly saints carefully measure their hearts against God’s perfect standard recorded in the Bible. Knowing there are still traces of the evil one living in our envious, stubborn, and rebellious hearts ought to drive us to the pages of Scripture with a sense of urgent humility. Personal study of Scripture combined with authentic worship in a gospel-preaching church serve as guardrails against the lukewarmness and disobedience that so often follows when we dismiss or ignore God’s commandments. Our problems are compounded when we look into God’s authoritative word and refuse to obey what it commands because we don’t like what it says or how it feels or how difficult it may be to surrender our idolatrous hearts to God’s truth. Biblical joy, however, is found in obedience to God’s commandments regardless of whether or not we like them, feel good about them, or find them easy to follow.
Our wickedly deceptive hearts regularly convince us that we are free of dishonesty, but we continue to accept and repeat the devil’s lies as if they are factually true. We may believe ourselves to be free of armed robbery, but regularly rob others of their value and dignity through our dismissiveness, unkindness, and cruel words. We eagerly convince ourselves that we are free of drunkenness, and yet live intoxicated with a consuming lust for power, control, possessions, and pleasure. Unlike God’s perfect law of liberty, our hearts are flattering mirrors, convincing us that we are indeed the fairest of them all. In this tainted mirror, every wart is covered, every flaw corrected, and every hint of imperfection is magically blotted out.
Rather than humbly gazing into the mirror of God’s word to see our sins clearly, we prefer the circus mirror that our sinful hearts offer. These mirrors may distort who we actually are, but we like what we see in them far better. They magically conceal our faults, and keep us from seeing ourselves accurately. When we look into these truth-twisting mirrors, we see a reflection that is far more agreeable than we actually are, guaranteeing that we will remain spiritually unprotected and vulnerable to Satan’s deceptive schemes. This is why it is important to look deep into the mirror of God’s word and pray, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24). Whatever sin God’s word reveals, be quick to repent and return to the path of obedience, which leads to the way everlasting.
Before leaving the house each morning, I encourage you to check your appearance in your bathroom mirror and make any necessary adjustments. But more importantly, spend sufficient and concentrated time beholding your spiritual condition in the mirror of God’s holy word. Let Scripture do its convicting work in your heart, and take decisive action to change what God declares unrighteous. The first time you look into God’s mirror and see an ugly sin breaking out like a round of acne, aggressively treat it with a high dose of repentance. Sin is always ugly, but it always grows more grotesque over time. Drive a nail through each and every sin the Lord brings to your attention and “put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5). Hate your sin. Then kill it. Don’t feed it. Don’t coddle it. Don’t play with it. Put it to death. Our sin is ugly, but we are beautiful in the sight of our heavenly Father. The only way to hate our sin without despising ourselves is to love God with all of our hearts, trust Him exclusively, and seek His grace each and every day. Our identity must never be defined by our sin but by our Savior who laid down His life on our behalf.
Spiritual maturity and deliverance from your sinful habits, thoughts, and desires will only happen when you follow Paul’s instruction and consider yourself “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11). If you are genuinely a child of God, you are dead to your sin and enjoying new life in Christ. Being a faithful doer of the word requires your loyalty, your heart, and your commitment to Christ. Your life must belong to Jesus and to him alone. The agony of Jesus became your victory. His death became your newness of life. His righteousness became yours when it was imputed to your account by God’s justifying grace.
From James’s imagery, we learn that one mirror may prevent you from the embarrassment of going to work with bedhead, but another one will protect you from the destructive clutches of the devil. Which mirror do you spend more time in front of? In order to be a faithful doer of the word rather than a mere listener, you must invest more time gazing into the truth-proclaiming mirror of God’s wondrous word.
In the opening chapter of James’s short epistle, he masterfully weaves an important contrast for his readers to carefully consider when he writes:
For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing (vv. 23-25).
According to these verses, there is a profound difference between those who hear the word of God but never change, and those who hear Scripture and obediently follow what it teaches. Simply put, there are those who obediently love and serve God, and there are those who don’t. Unlike a casual or disingenuous follower of Jesus, a faithful believer looks diligently into the perfect law of liberty (later called royal law in 2:8) and takes decisive action. This means that we read and understand the teachings of Christ so we can apply what we learn to our daily lives. Christians are expected to not only consume God’s word through consistent reading and listening, they are also commanded to digest it, apply it, and live it.
I’m acutely confident that before you leave the house each day you check your appearance in a mirror. What we see in our physical reflection points out any changes that need to be made to our face, clothes, or hair. My hair is rather unruly. It’s coarse, frizzy, and typically uncooperative. I don’t necessarily spend a lot of time on my hair, but I would not think of leaving the house before checking it in a mirror—or putting on a hat, which I prefer. James argues that none of us beholds our reflection in a mirror and fails to take corrective action. But for some strange reason we consistently do this spiritually when we look into the mirror of God’s word and ignore the sin we see or cover it up–like I often do with my unruly hair. Ignoring sin or covering it is certainly easier than addressing it. But both are dangerous propositions that bring destructive consequences.
Domesticating our sins is certainly less troublesome than biblically repenting of our transgressions and mortifying them. Pretending our sins don’t exist is obviously more comfortable and less time-consuming than repentance and change. These approaches may be less demanding in the short-term, but our tendency to overlook our spiritual needs stunts our spiritual growth and leaves us spiritually immature, guaranteeing future problems that will cause even more havoc in our lives. This is why James so urgently calls Christians to take immediate action against the sin God’s word points out. Dealing with sin the instant it comes to our attention saves us a lot of heartache down the road.
Sin always spins a powerful web of confusion, and creates a lot of heartache and damage. Rather than forsaking our sin and repenting of it, we coddle it, excuse it, and allow it to fester and grow. Our sinful hearts are seasoned with the spice of deceit, which often blinds us to the truth we so desperately need to hear. This is why godly saints carefully measure their hearts against God’s perfect standard recorded in the Bible. Knowing there are still traces of the evil one living in our envious, stubborn, and rebellious hearts ought to drive us to the pages of Scripture with a sense of urgent humility. Personal study of Scripture combined with authentic worship in a gospel-preaching church serve as guardrails against the lukewarmness and disobedience that so often follows when we dismiss or ignore God’s commandments. Our problems are compounded when we look into God’s authoritative word and refuse to obey what it commands because we don’t like what it says or how it feels or how difficult it may be to surrender our idolatrous hearts to God’s truth. Biblical joy, however, is found in obedience to God’s commandments regardless of whether or not we like them, feel good about them, or find them easy to follow.
Our wickedly deceptive hearts regularly convince us that we are free of dishonesty, but we continue to accept and repeat the devil’s lies as if they are factually true. We may believe ourselves to be free of armed robbery, but regularly rob others of their value and dignity through our dismissiveness, unkindness, and cruel words. We eagerly convince ourselves that we are free of drunkenness, and yet live intoxicated with a consuming lust for power, control, possessions, and pleasure. Unlike God’s perfect law of liberty, our hearts are flattering mirrors, convincing us that we are indeed the fairest of them all. In this tainted mirror, every wart is covered, every flaw corrected, and every hint of imperfection is magically blotted out.
Rather than humbly gazing into the mirror of God’s word to see our sins clearly, we prefer the circus mirror that our sinful hearts offer. These mirrors may distort who we actually are, but we like what we see in them far better. They magically conceal our faults, and keep us from seeing ourselves accurately. When we look into these truth-twisting mirrors, we see a reflection that is far more agreeable than we actually are, guaranteeing that we will remain spiritually unprotected and vulnerable to Satan’s deceptive schemes. This is why it is important to look deep into the mirror of God’s word and pray, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24). Whatever sin God’s word reveals, be quick to repent and return to the path of obedience, which leads to the way everlasting.
Before leaving the house each morning, I encourage you to check your appearance in your bathroom mirror and make any necessary adjustments. But more importantly, spend sufficient and concentrated time beholding your spiritual condition in the mirror of God’s holy word. Let Scripture do its convicting work in your heart, and take decisive action to change what God declares unrighteous. The first time you look into God’s mirror and see an ugly sin breaking out like a round of acne, aggressively treat it with a high dose of repentance. Sin is always ugly, but it always grows more grotesque over time. Drive a nail through each and every sin the Lord brings to your attention and “put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5). Hate your sin. Then kill it. Don’t feed it. Don’t coddle it. Don’t play with it. Put it to death. Our sin is ugly, but we are beautiful in the sight of our heavenly Father. The only way to hate our sin without despising ourselves is to love God with all of our hearts, trust Him exclusively, and seek His grace each and every day. Our identity must never be defined by our sin but by our Savior who laid down His life on our behalf.
Spiritual maturity and deliverance from your sinful habits, thoughts, and desires will only happen when you follow Paul’s instruction and consider yourself “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11). If you are genuinely a child of God, you are dead to your sin and enjoying new life in Christ. Being a faithful doer of the word requires your loyalty, your heart, and your commitment to Christ. Your life must belong to Jesus and to him alone. The agony of Jesus became your victory. His death became your newness of life. His righteousness became yours when it was imputed to your account by God’s justifying grace.
From James’s imagery, we learn that one mirror may prevent you from the embarrassment of going to work with bedhead, but another one will protect you from the destructive clutches of the devil. Which mirror do you spend more time in front of? In order to be a faithful doer of the word rather than a mere listener, you must invest more time gazing into the truth-proclaiming mirror of God’s wondrous word.
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